Fundamentals Of Jainism

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Veer Nirvan Bharti

Page 57

SAMVARA
49
on the process of analysis still further in the domain of causality, it will serve no useful purpose to analyse these causes still further. It may, however, be pointed out here that many of the actions described as the causes of the different kinds of karmas might,. at first sight, appear to have little or no causal connection with the energies they are described as engendering, but a careful study of the motives from which they proceed and of the accompanying attitude, or condition, of the soul would at once reveal them to be true to their description. For instance, the reader may well ask what is the causal connection between the act of marrying one's children at an early age and the resultant energy of the antaraya karma, but if he would take into consideration the state of the mind of the parent who acts in this manner, he would soon discover that the latter has no idea of the evil consequences which result from the uniting of little ones in the bonds of matrimony, and is purely guided by what he considers to be conducive to his own pleasure. Thoughtlessness and selfishness, thus, are the causes which lie at the back of this evil practice, and these, undoubtedly, are the signs of soul's negativity, the chief cause of all kinds of weakness. Besides this the form of pleasure which one can possibly derive from marrying one's child at an early age, being purely of a sensual type, and consisting, as it does, in the giving of feasts, the performance of nautch and the like, clearly points to the fact that the mind is completely taken up with the gratification of senses.
We thus have soul's negativity coupled with the desire for sense-gratification; and these combined lead to an influx of material particles which easily find a lodgment in, and tend to clog up, certain parts of the karmâna sarira upon which depend the organising and functioning of all bodily organs. Now, since the idea and actual sight of little children playing the role of married people is pregnant with the suggestion of the abeyance of sexual function, the inflow of matter takes place in and clogs the very centres which are concerned in the formation, development and proper functioning of the generative organs. The result is that the antaraya karma of the third and fourth kinds is generated at once, the consequences of which shall have to be borne by the soul in its present or future life or lives.